Blaine's Tower Bath, follies and folly towers at follytowers.com (original) (raw)

Less than a quarter of a mile from Beckford's Tower you will find this structure.
The difference in the condition of the two, could not be greater however. Like the vast majority of follies, this one finds itself in a neglected state, as it sits in the 218 acre grounds of Kingswood private school.

I have to apologise for the poor photo's, I had the light level set wrong, and all the images have had to be enhanced with software to make them presentable.

Blaine's tower takes its name not unnaturally from its creator a Mr Robert Blaine, it seems that not unlike other follies, it was built to provide work for the unemployed of the area, sometime in the 1880's.

The

style is the ever fashionable (for a folly tower, at any rate) Italianate, and it reaches a height of around 60 foot by my estimate. I think this one is a particularly nice example, which makes it an even greater shame that it is left as it is.
Unfortunately there are no good anecdotes or tales of woe associated with this folly that I could find.
The layout of the small windows, seem to suggest a single stairwell around the inside walls, into a viewing room at the top.

Blaine's Folly is not shown on many maps. Just to the South of Beckford's Tower is shown a school, this is the general area. Use this Multi-map link

Visiting:-
The tower is not open, neither is it directly accessible, being located on private property. There are opportunities to see it from a lane that runs along side the area that it is situated in.

A closer view of the top.